Post Traumatic
by Hezrield
Summary: Every warfighter knows the term, Garden is still a young military force. Squall isn't the only one who deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder either. Can the gang all find a way to come to terms with their emotional scars? Can Quistis help Squall through her own pain?


This is the first thing I've published in a long while, I'm thinking like up on 8 years. So hopefully it turns out alright. I don't own FFVIII or anything to do with it, this purely a work of fan-made fiction.

So I figured I'd try and throw some realism into this to experiment, this first chapter gets a little chatty, but I feel it explains a little of how it would work. Also, this is where I see the story going after the end of the game. Graphic violence, graphic sexual content, etc. etc. Please Read and enjoy at your own risk.

XX

"Keep eyes on the buildings, Irvine. We need far security; we're up against ranged units." Squall said as the sniper chambered a round in the carbine held tightly in his hands, putting it to his shoulder and looking through the optic to ensure it was functional and collapsing the butt stock to fit his sight picture.

"Yo Squall, why aren't we using those too?" Zell asked, warily scanning down both directions of the alley they were creeping down.

"As SeeD, we generally specialize in close combat, not to mention most wars fought throughout the world are still done at close combat." Quistis cut in.

"Sooo…. Funding?" Zell arched an eyebrow.

Squall flicked the cylinder out of his gunblade to ensure the shells were still inside. "Something like that…" It snapped shut with a reassuring clack.

Five person teams weren't unheard of in SeeD missions, though highly uncommon. They were often used when one individual needed security in order to accomplish a task. It left an extra hand, in most cases, a spotter for a sniper. The other three members turned into a security element, setting them ahead or behind the other team as a defensive perimeter. There had been an awful lot of these missions lately.

Selphie peeked into a doorway, her hand flashing the signal to go, and they rushed into the door where their contact was waiting for them. The SeeD held their offensive posture, weapons held at ready, eyes scanning for threats constantly. The room was silent, Squall gave a hand signal for _clear the house, _and they moved into action.

Irvine kicked a door to the left and the muzzle of his weapon cleared every angle of the room in barely a few moments. He glided around the room, his weapon never dropping. "Clear." He stayed in the room, his posture, changing to a defensive one.

Squall and Quistis pushed upstairs into a loft that covered the entire top floor. Squall's blade was held ready to lunge into an opponent, Quistis' whip was held in a stance ready to pull someone off their balance so Squall could deal a finishing blow. It only took them a moment to see the bare loft in the abandon building was empty. "Clear."

Zell and Selphie rushed into a doorway that lead to a kitchen, they saw recently disturbed dust and looked at each other, nodding simultaneously. They followed the disturbances in the dust to a walk-in cabinet. Selphie nodded to Zell, who kicked the door so hard the weak wood it was made of broke around the knob, the rest of the door nearly knocking the man behind it unconscious.

Squall, Quistis, and Irvine came running to the commotion in the kitchen to find Zell with a man in a rear naked choke; Selphie had her weapon ready to strike his head if he continued resisting. "Verify yourself." Zell hissed.

"Planting SeeDs across the world is my goal, so that I may one day see the world abloom with flowers of freedom." The man said, fear clearly in his choked voice.

"We're the SeeDs your boss called, everything has been coordinated, we have been given an operation order, and we just need the last piece from you." Squall stepped up to the man as Zell released him.

"They aren't expecting him to be hit; we've dropped false intelligence that we were hitting another official on the other side of the country. We've verified that _his_ security has doubled in the last week. He's having tea with an old acquaintance today in about three hours; his has a small personal security detail that should be easy to take out for people of your capabilities. From there, just entering and clearing the house should be fine." The man spit the information out with practiced ease, something about it making Squall's hair stand on end…

"Actually," Irvine, stepped into his view. "We're going with a more ranged option."

XX

"I hate Assassinations…" Zell muttered as they sat upstairs looking through a window. "I much prefer to just be in a straight fight, where I know I can accomplish something. This stuff is just… underhanded, I guess." Squall saw his friend was struggling with his words.

"Yeah, but it's what keeps the Garden running." Squall shrugged. "The bottom line is that we're mercenaries, we can pick and choose our jobs, but what keeps people returning to Balamb is the fact that we do stuff like this. Not to mention that we maintain strict neutrality in any conflict.

"But we aren't neutral; we're obviously siding with the revolutionaries in this war." Selphie cocked her head to the side, looking at the pair of men staring out the window.

"Yes, but tomorrow we could be doing the counter mission to what we're doing today. That is to say we could be assassinating the guy who just gave us this information, or his boss, or whoever runs this thing."

"That's not entirely true." Quistis cut in from where she was leaning up against a wall. "Most of the time once we have a contract with one side of a conflict we work with them until the end of the fight. However, this is mainly due to the fact that the other factions go to other Gardens, or assume that we have taken a side, which is standard policy for the other Gardens. It's not very common, what Squall is talking about, but not entirely unheard of either."

"Oh… I've never really noticed that…" Selphie pursed her lips in thought.

"Makes us sound like cutthroat profiteers." Irvine said from his corner where was leaning back casually in a chair. He watched the door, his weapon professionally held at a low ready.

"Cid doesn't seem like that at all…" Selphie's facial expression changed to a pout.

"He's not." Quistis calmly reassured her. "He's only looking out for us at the garden. He does what he does to ensure that we stay well funded and comfortable." Silence followed for a while after her statement.

"But what if there's a conflict with Balamb?" Irvine chimed in.

"Simple." Squall answered. "We owe loyalty to Balamb, because it's our host nation-state. We would side with them and provide our services while cutting of the offending nation from them at the same time."

"Ah…" Irvine nodded and backed his way out of the conversation.

"Balamb is a peaceful nation-state that avoids conflicts and provides a great amount of humanitarian aid to other nations in need." Selphie said, "It's kind of odd that the strongest militant mercenary force comes from there."

"Ironic…" Zell muttered.

Their conversation trailed off, Selphie found herself humming tunelessly to herself, Squall and Zell quietly stared out the window, Irvine in his chair, and Quistis quietly pacing. They didn't need to fill the already tense air with awkward conversation. There was a fight coming and they needed to focus on the mission at hand.

XX

Zell looked through the spotting scope, absorbing the information reflecting through the lens and relaying it to his sniper. He and Irvine had become the team, Irvine teaching him everything he needed to know as a spotter. This meant that Zell was also trained as the sniper. (A/N: Snipers train as spotters and snipers, the easiest way to explain it is that the both members of a sniper team need to act as one entity, so they both need to know each other's roles.) Irvine was the undisputed marksman, and Zell was resigned to let him have his glory and fulfill his role as a spotter.

"He's sitting down now." Zell said, keeping a step back in the window, so as to not be obviously seen spotting. "His profile facing left."

"Identified." Irvine whispered, his eye looking through his optic. He too was sitting away from a second window. "First shot, aimed center mass, pellet shot to shatter the window. Second shot, hollow point, to hit just below the ear." The shot was ridiculous to make, but Zell was confident his friend could make it.

"Target is one hundred meters- a little close for comfort, no wind." Zell's voice was catching in his throat in anticipation.

"Roger." Irvine inhaled, and then exhaled sharply, his finger pulling the trigger back in a smooth motion. The first round flew out of the window he was aiming at shattered. The general looked at it, shocked, frozen in place. Irvine exhaled with his diaphragm and pulled the trigger again, his aim immediately adjusted onto the general's vulnerable face. The second round left the chamber with a dull pop, thanks to the silencer attached to the end of Irvine's barrel.

Zell watched as the first round shattered the window perfectly, his brow furrowed when he still saw a glare where the window was mere moments ago. The second shot went off, and the General's face disappeared behind the ballistic glass spider-webbing as it stopped the bullet clean. "Bullet proof glass! They saw this coming!" Zell hissed.

"Shit!" Irvine shouted, both men were immediately up and out the door.

XX

Squall, Quistis and Selphie were set at the back door of the house, ready for Irvine and Zell to link up for the exfill. Moments like this were always tense for Squall, the wait before the fight always left him shaking as his adrenaline pumped in anticipation of the ensuing violence. They silently stood, their weapons held in their hands, their knuckles white from gripping them so hard.

"I hate this part." Selphie voiced for all of them. This much was true; no warrior would say they relished the wait for the fight.

"Any minute now…" Quistis muttered, more to calm her own nerves than anything else.

"….."

They all jumped when they heard a window shatter, followed by a soft pop of Irvine's weapon discharging a second time. One shot to break the glass, the other to hit the target before he had a chance to react. (A/N: A bullet won't shoot straight through glass, ballistics is tricky, once a shot hits a window, there's no telling where it could go.)

"Shit!" Squall knew there was something wrong after hearing Irvine's voice upstairs.

An instant later he and Zell were sprinting out the back, Zell had a vehement look on his face. "We were set up! They had ballistic glass behind the window!"

"My pellet shot shattered the window as planned, but the second round hit the glass they had set up, they're coming." Irvine reported calmly, Squall realized he had come far from the young man whose nerves prevented him from even shooting just a few years ago.

"Let's go, you get rear, suppress anyone attempting to follow, no unnecessary death." Squall snapped, and he took point down the back alley.

They took off at a feverish pace, knowing that an already high-risk job just became an even higher risk job. Irvine popped two rounds from the silenced carbine. "Yo boss, we've gotta hurry! I'm seeing SMG's!" And as if on cue, Squall heard the distinct thumping of bullets into a wall only a few meters from them.

"Weapons free! These guys mean business!" Squall roared as they took off at a sprint out of the alley and down the deserted street. "Quistis, do something about them!"

Quistis didn't even say anything as she planted herself, a blast of fire blowing chunks from the corner of the building. Squall heard the men cry out in anger and pain. She let off another, straight into the alley; it went off with the force of a grenade. She turned and sprinted hard to catch up with the rest of the group, Irvine placing himself back in the rear of the pack.

More gunfire opened up from behind them up the street- of course, push them out into the open and pick them off with aimed fire. "Irvine!" Squall shouted, "Selphie, cover him!" They all skidded to a halt, and no sooner did Selphie throw up the barrier did the bullets push from right in front of Irvine to over their heads. He knew they were only good for a few moments, so Irvine quickly shouldered his weapon, they all saw his breath blow out his chest, his aim steady for a brief moment, and his bullet hit one of the guards square in the chest. He stumbled, _and kept moving forward._

"They have body armor!" Irvine shouted, turning and running.

"Run! Get into cover!" Squall shouted as they all followed Irvine's suit. There was another wide alley that led away from their extraction point, however, it was cover. "Over here!" He sprinted headlong into it.

For a brief second, as he ran into the alleyway, Squall felt the wire tug at his ankle. Then the world became dust and concussive force. Squall felt himself hit the ground. He had no idea what had happened. He faintly heard his comrades yelling. His mind was blank, he felt as if a truck hit him, passed through him, and knocked himself out of his body.

"Booby-trap!" Zell shouted, Squall felt his gauntleted hand grab his collar and begin dragging him farther up the street. "Get away from the kill zone!"

"Selphie! Quistis!" Irvine shouted, and the two women threw up barriers. Irvine blew the air from his lungs, shouldered the weapon and fired. This time one the soldier's heads snapped back and he fell to the ground like a ragdoll. "Let's go!"

Squall's world was fading in and out of black, he felt something wet running down his face. Everyone's voices sounded like they were shouting into pillows, and there was a solid ringing in his ears. He tried to get his footing as he was being dragged by Zell, only to find his legs weren't responding. He tried to ask what was going on, but his voice wouldn't work. Everything was at the end of a blurry black tunnel.

Irvine sprinted up to a house and kicked the door literally off its hinges. He ran in with the rifle raised. "Everybody out! Get the fuck out!" A scrawny young man and his wife scrambled to get out the back door as the rest of the team filed in. Zell threw his friend onto a couch and Selphie was already pushing him out of the way, assessing his injuries.

"He's shell shocked for sure, it's looking like it was more of a concussive explosion, probably comp-b or something with a lot of push-power" She whispered. Irvine smashed out a window and fired down the street at their pursuers, a second soldier, too eager to get a kill, took a bullet to his throat. "His head's bleeding, but it's not too bad, I don't know about a concussion… Squall? Squall, can you hear me?"

Squall's eyes snapped open. The adrenaline in his body kicked into overdrive. The world came back into focus like a ton of bricks. He saw Selphie mutter an incantation for a healing spell, and felt the warm, fuzzy feeling of magic running through him.

Squall finally got his mouth to work. "…Yeah…" He managed weakly. He felt the feeling slowly come back to his body, and instantly wished it hadn't. There were several sharp pains all over his body, topped with an ache that he felt all over the entirety of his being. He sat up with Selphie's aid, coughing the dust from his lungs.

"There's more!" Irvine shouted, firing a couple more shots off to suppress. "Someone cover me, I've got to reload!" Zell ran up to the window and threw a spike of ice out of it, the ice shattering and freezing everything around it as the lucky shot froze the entire left side of a soldier shouldering his weapon to fire.

"Squall can you walk?" Quistis asked him as Selphie continued focusing healing magic on him.

He felt his head clear slightly, and the aches recede. "We've got to go. Call for immediate extraction at the emergency extraction point.

"On it." Quistis immediately was on the radio. "Raven, Raven, this is ground team; we need immediate extraction at DZ Bravo, over."

"Roger that ground team, Raven is inbound to dust-off zone, be there in one-five mikes."

Selphie slumped over Squall's lap. The amount of magic she and Quistis had been using left them both exhausted. "We should hurry, cause I don't know how much more I can take."

Irvine came over to Selphie, standing her up and throwing her arm around his shoulder. "Let's go, we'll dash across the street and make a break straight for the extraction point."

"Sounds like we don't have much choice, let's break contact, fast." Squall stood shakily. "Quistis, can you walk alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine." She looked pale, but Squall shrugged and let her be.

Squall began an incantation to summon Ifrit, wondering which of his memories would be taken as payment. Zell cursed and shouted that he could have done it. Fire began to engulf Squall, miraculously not burning him. The power of the guardian force became explosive as he directed it up the street at their enemies.

"Go!" Zell shouted, and the team took off down the street.

Squall didn't know how he had made it to the extraction point, they had to have been running for what felt like an hour, and even though they had exhausted themselves, they continued to throw spells at their six o' clock, there had never been a more beautiful sight to any of them than seeing that aircraft coming down to get them.

"Oh baby!" Zell jumped for joy. "Raven," He tapped his earpiece, keying the radio. "I'm buying you as many hotdogs as you can eat for this one."

There was a chuckle in their earpieces. "Sure thing Zell, let's get you out of there first." The bird flared, dust flying up as it came to the ground.

"All right! Let's get on this thing and get the f-"

They all heard the gun shot, Selphie saw his chest stick out, and blood spattered onto her face. She fell to her knees in shock.

"Zell!" Squall, Quistis and Irvine, shouted in unison.

"Irvine, suppress them!" Squall shouted, Irvine began firing wildly in the general direction of the enemy, sprinting over to their dying friend as he fell limply to the ground. Quistis began chanting to summon Shiva, memories be damned at that moment. Squall just stood there, his best friend's chest was splattered onto Selphie's face.

Squall was too busy at that moment to be shocked by this, he turned as Irvine put his weapon of safe and slung it, scooping up Zell in his arms in a honeymoon style carry. He and Quistis were providing them the security they needed to get the casualty out of there.

The Ice goddess Quistis called was freezing men indiscriminately as Squall walked up to an approaching fire team. He saw their mouths move, telling him to drop his weapon, not to resist. He didn't care. Not one fucking bit.

His gunblade was already out, he had killed one of them before it even registered that he was going to resist. His second victim attempted to jump back as he moved to bisect him with the gunblade; Squall saw his slash come short and pulled the trigger. The soldier slumped to the ground after is guts were blown out of his back by the pellets from the gunblade round. The third was still in shock when Squall ran him through. The fourth man turned to run, but Squall held his gunblade out straight, and fired once more, the man fell, shot in the back.

A close combat team ran at Selphie and Irvine, Squall sprinted headlong into them, slashing wide, and pulling his trigger. His show of force quickly got their attention, forcing them to stop and face their new opponent. The first man sprinted forward with a long sword held high. As he brought his blade down, Squall quickly sidestepped and eviscerated the amateur with a neat side slash. The other two rushed in at once with two handed lunges, he stepped into one of them, neatly pushing one blade aside with the grace of a fencer. Before the soldier knew what had happened, Squall was pulling the blade from his chest and swinging his gunblade around to the last man, who was regaining his balance and pulled the trigger, the anti-personnel scattershot inside peppering and killing the assault team's leader.

Reality spilt in, his revenge wasn't enough, but they had to go. He turned to get on the hovercraft to see Irvine and Selphie get Zell's limp body onto the bird, pulling his shirt off to treat the bullet wound. Shiva was fading into nothing and right behind her, was a soldier with a rifle shouldered.

Aimed right at Squall.

For a brief moment, Squall had never been more certain of his own demise. Until he saw the perfect precision of Quistis' whip wrap around his arm and pull his shot. Squall heard the bullet whiz by him, barely a few feet away as he watched Quistis force the man to a knee and proceed to beat his skull in with the hard, metal handle of her whip.

She turned to Squall, her eyes calm and filled with resolve. "Get on the bird! Now!" He didn't even think to question. He dashed over as fast as he could, Quistis hot on his heels. They climbed into seats and the bird was airborne. The ride was silent except for Selphie sobbing hysterically as she treated Zell, trying as hard as she could to reassure him, healing magic resonating throughout the two of them. Quistis quickly joined her, draining all of her mental energy into keeping Zell alive.

"Please baby, hang on for me, I'm right here, we'll be back soon, and I'll get you some hot dogs, and we'll have a good time, and I'll rub your back just the way you like it." She was rambling, but at least she was doing something to reassure him. She pulled a long, thin gauged needle out of an aid bag. "I'm gonna give you something to help you breathe alright? Gonna clear this tension pneumothorax right up." She smiled for Zell, Squall and Quistis felt their hearts breaking watching what their self-proclaimed medic was putting herself through. Zell's muscular chest looked like it was half missing as Irvine covered the bullet's exit hole with a special sealing bandage. Squall assumed they already covered the entrance on his back. Healing magic, when casted by the most powerful users, could only mend the most minor of fractures, and slow bleeding enough to get a casualty to aid, but Squall was sure that the only thing Selphie and Quistis were doing was making Zell comfortable- or at least as comfortable you can be with a bullet hole.

Selphie grabbed Zell's arm on his uninjured side and shoved it into the opposing armpit, she placed her finger under Zell's hand to mark it; she pulled out a long thick-gauged needle and pressed it into his side. Air began to escape and Zell's body began to be capable of breathing slightly with the one good lung it had. Selphie pulled the needle out, leaving in the catheter, taping it down, completing the chest-needle decompression. Zell began to weakly breathe again, he was still bleeding profusely, and Irvine was applying pressure, almost entirely in a pushup position over Zell applying pressure.

"Let me in." Squall said over the sound of the vehicle's engine. He placed his hand over Irvine's assuming a similar, half-push up position. Irvine slid his hands, slick with blood, out.

"Can you hear me baby?" Selphie cradled Zell's head in her lap now. His eyes looked up into hers, tears of pain and anguish in both of their eyes. "It's gonna be okay, I'm right here." She was rubbing his face, which like her hand, was covered in blood, but Squall was certain that it was a comforting notion none-the-less.

Squall, Quistis, and Irvine all shared a look between each other, they were all certain, that unless a miracle happened, the worst possibility would become reality. In only a short time-

Zell was going to die.

The aircraft was eerily quiet the entire ride back to the garden, which was already en-route back to Balamb after the BOLO. Quistis and Selphie were beyond exhausted after twenty solid minutes of focused healing magic. Squall began to mutter the incantation to a healing spell as he continued to apply pressure. Irvine stepped in and relieved Quistis, who barely was able to inch out of the way and collapse in exhaustion. Selphie was sweating profusely, pale as paper. She adamantly refused as Irvine and Squall encouraged her to take a break and regain some strength.

Squall heard the pilot saying something over the radio, and prayed that it was to have an emergency team waiting for them upon their return to garden. The team continued to push all of their energy into keeping Zell alive and comfortable. He began to feel confident that Zell was going to make it.

"Ten minutes till we land at the garden!" The co-pilot shouted back to the team after a few moments of exhausting silence. "There are medical teams waiting at the landing pad for you!"

Squall barely had the strength to look up at the pilot and nod. His arms were burning and his head felt as if he was hungover. The physical and mental exertion he was putting out was so immense; he had no idea how he was going to contribute to Zell's living for much longer. Quistis finally regained consciousness and put her hands on top of Squall's, who gratefully pulled them out, shifting all of his focus on his own, weak healing magic.

Eternity passed, Squall's vision began tunneling, Irvine and Quistis eventually traded, Quistis focusing on magic, and Irvine keeping pressure on Zell's chest to keep it from bleeding profusely. All of them were shaking with fatigue; Zell continued his struggle as Selphie's reassurances became weaker and weaker from her own loss of energy. Soon she was just mumbling incoherently as she hunched over, her forehead resting on Zell's.

Blackness finally overtook Squall, as soon as the world finished fading; he felt a rushed presence all around him and the others. He heard voices that sounded miles away shouting about carts, moving Zell, and all of them. He didn't even have the strength to smile when he realized they had made it back to garden.

Soon his entire world was blank.


End file.
